"The white queen is troubled but can't say why. The black queen hates the white and gives the assassin a black coat. The assassin steals upon the white queen. She can't see him gliding through the shadows. The sword screams. The white queen falls. Her city falls. Stones fall in the cavern to crush the soothsayer. The tree burns and thrashes in agony. Branches break. Branches twist and grow together..."

In her vision, Yaphyll referred to Mystra as the white queen and to Shar, goddess of the night, as the black queen. Cyric, god of murder, was the assassin, Savras, the god of divination, was the soothsayer[citation needed], and the city, cavern and tree symbolized the ordered structures of magic crumbling into chaos.[6]

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Some scholars believed that the Spellplague was caused by the death of Mystra, the goddess of Magic. For eons, magic had been bound within Mystra's Weave, the universal structure of arcane forces, and her death tore the Weave apart and unleashed the raw magic contained within it, creating the cataclysm that was later known as the Spellplague.[7]

Other scholars, however, didn't consider this to be a logical explanation. Historically, two earlier incarnations of Mystra had died before only to be reborn, and the Weave maintained its hold over the power of magic for the duration of her deaths. In these scholars' views, the truth would never be fully known to mortals, and perhaps not even to the gods.[7]

During the Second Sundering of the late years of the 15th century DR, the truth was revealed, however. The Weave had been infected by Cyric's madness, which became a "physical" force after Shar bolstered it with the corrupting energies of the Far Realm in a mistaken belief that after destroying Dweomerheart she could control the Weave.[8]

Mystra's death caused the Weave to collapse and without the Weave the Shadow Weave was unable to be maintained and collapsed as well. The breakdown of the Weave was felt by all wizards across Faerûn.[3][2] The corrupted madness of Cyric defiled what arcane forces remained from the dissolution of the Weave, resulting in a new magical source of defiling arcane energy in the form of blue flames that destroyed Dweomerheart and continued to spread across the multiverse.[2][8]

Since the Spellplague was born from the defiling powers from the Far Realm, a plane that existed outside of Realmspace, not even Lord Ao had the power to stop it once it started.[8]

The Spellplague manifested in Toril as a storm of blue flames in the Mhair Jungles, west of Halruaa, and quickly grew to a massive size.[4] Halruaan wizards, having divined the death of Mystra and the destruction of the Weave, were able to use the energy of the blue fire to save most of their kingdom by shifting it into another world, Abeir.[9] However, the remaining Halruaan lands in Toril were laid to waste due to the heavy wild magic activity in the area, in such a catastrophic way that the explosion was felt as far as Waterdeep.[10]Sespech, the Golden Plains, and the Nagalands were also affected, and those lands were transformed into an unpredictable and surreal place, dubbed the Plaguewrought Lands.[2]

The blue flames also infected portals and planar gates, spreading even further across Toril.[2] Almost every part of Faerûn was affected by the Spellplague and certain areas were eliminated entirely, while others were created anew. Thousands of spellcasters were either destroyed or went insane due to the collapse of the Weave after Mystra's death.[4] In Cormyr, a third of the War Wizards were either killed or driven mad. Those who survived lost their ability to use arcane magic.[4] Other continents, such as Kara-Tur and Osse, were affected by the Spellplague as well.[11]

It was through the planar gates that the Spellplague traveled across time and space, and reached the world of Abeir.[2] In that world, the Spellplague first appeared in Gontal, the southwestern region of the continent of Laerakond, where it made contact with ancient Glaur, the fortress of the PrimordialNehushta.[12][13] The fortress detonated when the "Blue Breath of Change" ran through it, in an explosion as potent as the Tearfall, rocking the entire planet of Abeir and creating the Glaur Barrens where the old fortress once stood.[13] Laerakond was torn apart in a powerful earthquake, and a portion of the nation of Skelkor, where the capital of the dragonborn nation of Tymanchebar was located, was torn asunder and disappeared amid the blue fire.[14]

That region, where the city-citadel of Djerad Thymar was located, crashed on Unther, still enveloped in the blue flames. Many believed the Untherites and the Mulhorandi occupation forces were obliterated in the explosion that leveled and reshaped the whole region except for the Black Ash Plain,[15] but actually Unther was instead transported to the world of Abeir.[16] However, it was transported to the lands of Shyr, the equivalent continent to Faerûn in Abeir.[17]

The rest of Laerakond was sent to the Trackless Sea, were it subsumed the lands of Maztica. Maztica was transported to Abeir, and Laerakond, which became known as 'Returned Abeir', remained on Toril.[18]

Despite the efforts, with the structure of magic out of balance, many spells failed[19] or produced unreliable results.[2]

Most permanent magic items, such as artifacts, were left intact at the end of the Spellplague but charged magical items were either destroyed, warped, or simply ceased to function. Items with dormant magical qualities, which were manually activated, were largely unaffected by the Spellplague.[11]

The Spellplague pulled back the Feywild into Toril's proximity, reopening the paths between the two planes again.[28]

With his new found godly power, Asmodeus took advantage of the planar instability to hurl the Abyss to the Elemental Chaos in an attempt to end the Blood War.[2][21] Asmodeus failed, however, as throwing the Abyss into the Chaos did not stop the Blood War, although it was stalled by a hundred years.[29]

The Spellplague affected the landscape, making the ground rumble and heave up and down like the surface of the sea.[3] Curtains of blue flame swept the landscape, reshaping the land by cutting crevasses or lifting and sculpting the plain into hills and ridges.[30] Shards of earth wrenched themselves free and became earthmotes.[31]

Waves of azure fires appeared everywhere, killing whatever they touched.[32]

Chult became a large island when most of the Chultan Peninsula was cut off from the mainland.[36] Much of Samarach was drowned, its survivors spellscarred, and the yuan-ti realm of Serpentes fell.[37] To save the city of Mezro from destruction, Ubtao's barae created a demiplane and transported their city and all its citizens there. They left behind artificial ruins occupied by undead to discourage people to find what really happened to Mezro.[38] According to the bara Alisanda Rayburton and the nagaSaja N'baza, Mezro would not return to Toril as for as long Ras Nsi was alive.[38][39] Likewise, the Chultan jungle became home to massive monsters from Abeir.[37]

The region surrounding the Great Rift became the Underchasm.[36] Bits of what used to be the Underdark began to float above the Underchasm as earthmotes.[31]

The halfling realm of Luiren was submerged underwater, becoming the Gulf of Luiren in the Great Sea.[36] In the century since that great disaster, the waters receded, and stories told by travelers from the south told of halfling communities that survived as island redoubts.[41]

The sudden shifting of continental bodies sent tsunamis all along the island and coastal regions of Faerûn, devastating them all. Lantan was hit harder than most.[42] Before the waves reached the island, all the smokepowder and magical reagents exploded at the same time, causing great chaos. And as the waves reached the coastline, most of Lantan was engulfed by the blue fire and send to Abeir.[43] What remained of Lantan on Toril was entirely flooded, killing the remaining Lantanese and cleaning away their advanced technology.[42]

Evermeet was pushed into the plane of Faerie, leaving behind a pale shadow of what the island of the elves used to be, though the isle's residents could move back and forth from Faerie to Faerûn at will.[44]

In 1386 DR[4] large parts of Abeir and Toril switched places (small, almost imperceptible parts had been switching places since the Time of Troubles but this event was markedly more noticeable).[55] A portion of Shyr violently changed places with large sections of Chondath and western Chessenta. Displaced genasi quickly set about creating a kingdom of their own, Akanûl.[4]

Political upheaval across the land that resulted in many attempted coups, invasions, and uprisings. Especially against governments and nations that had relied heavily on arcane magic for defense or controlling their population.[56]

The number of people gifted with psionics increased exponentially in Toril ever since after the Spellplague. Some scholars believed this was a reaction against the Far Realm-defiling energy of the Spellplague.[57]

By 1395 DR, the majority of the effects of the Spellplague had come to an end and most arcane magic had returned to a semblance of normality, with a handful of major changes to the way spells are cast.[4] The Empire of Netheril came across the Lost Vale and displaced the saurials there into the Underdark.[58]

By 1480 DR, the Spellplague had ended with the event known as Mystra's Return. The Weave was resurrected with the goddess and magic became what it was before the Spellplague, though some areas with lingering effects from it remained.[60]

In 1482 DR Lord Ao began the Second Sundering, as a way to restore the worlds of Toril and Abeir of the ravages of the Spellplague.[61]